Torrenting Handbags: 868-HACK Is Out

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Back in 1873, it was the norm of the day for ‘magazines’ to publish ‘reviews’ of games weeks before said games went on sale. Now that humanity can’t hold anything in its memory for more than fourteen seconds, reviews tend to hit the insta-second a game goes on sale. Pretty silly of me to publish a Wot I Think of Michael Brough’s amazing/terrifying cyberpunkish rogueliteish 868-HACK over a week before its release then, eh? Let’s correct that right now: 868-HACK is now on sale, here’s my WIT if you missed it, and below is a very funny live-action trailer spoofing the ill-judged anti-piracy ads which once blighted Blighty’s DVDs.

It’s not just funny trailers with an impressive excess of random wiring, though. 868-HACK is great, honestly. It’s super-clever, super-compulsive, doesn’t talk down to you and is a little bit like being trapped inside a nightmare. Except in a good way?

Oh, one thing I should add is that dev Michael ‘Smestorp’ Brough (he of Corrpyt) has added (Steam-powered) leaderboards in a slightly later build of the game than the one I had for review.

The game’s been out on iOS for ever, but can now be bought for PC right here. It’s just under £5/$6. I just used a VPN purely to work out how much it was in the US. I hope you’re impressed.

It’s about .94 Peggles, and a bargain at 4 times the price. I’m sorta at a loss for what to say, ever since the RPS killdrones knocked down a comment of mine beginning “Michael Brough embodies everything wrong with Mobile Gaming.” To be clear, I mean, the fact that millions worldwide are not playing Smestorp™ games on their mobile devices shows how far the Powers That Be need to go to connect developers and players. Here’s hoping more people check out the PC version, which, I will attest, works well, runs fast, and I haven’t seen any non-intentional glitches.

Oh man! I’ve been looking forward to this for AGES. I’m a huge fan of Michael Brough’s work, though I haven’t been able to play as much of it since he started developing mostly for iOS.

I played a bit of 86856527, but have been saving myself for this ever since all the iPhone-owning people were talking about how great 868-Hack is. From what I can tell, this is a buy for sure if you like any of these three things: roguelikes, experimental games, puzzle games.

Here’s hoping I get a shot at buying/playing Helix some day, though I understand Brough is a little fed up with spending so much time porting and fixing his old games. Maybe I can get myself an iPhone or something eventually. Eh.